Nurses' home at Harefield Sanatorium, Harefield, Greater London
The caption on the reverse of the photograph read: “Training in a T.B. hospital". Tuberculosis (TB) was an infectious bacterial disease transmitted through the air, that mainly affected people’s lungs. Before vaccines and antibiotics were developed it was treated by sending patients to a hospital in a place with clean air for ‘bed-rest’, often outside. Nurses caring for patients with TB also lived alongside them at the hospital. Whilst not in full isolation, keeping all the nurses saying ‘on-site’ was designed to increase efficiency and help reduce the risk of spreading infection to the wider population. At the start of the 20th century, before the invention of antibiotics, there were several infectious diseases that affected many people’s daily lives. The three main ones that required treatment in isolation hospitals were Tuberculosis (TB), Scarlet Fever & Polio.
